The United Nations (UN) has assured President-elect John Dramani Mahama of their support.
The United Nations Resident Coordinator Charles Abani who paid a courtesy call on Mr Mahama on Tuesday, December 11 commended Mr Mahama for the way he carried out his campaign.
He said “Our real purpose here is to congratulate you for your victory, to thank you for the way you led your party to a successful, peaceful election year in Ghana particularly as the international community had its eyes on Ghana to continue to hold up the torch of Ghana, one that many of us as the beacon of democracy.
“Your ascension to office also brings you the first female vice president ever to Ghana, congratulations on that success.
This is to assure you that UN stands fully with you and fully with Ghana, we know your presidency is just about to unfold, I can assure you of our collaboration. thank you.
Responding to him, Mr Mahama said Ghana and the UN have had a long-standing relationship. He expressed the will to deepen this relationship.
“I really appreciate it. Ghana has long-standing relations with all the agencies under the UN and having been president before I know the work we did together. we need you more than ever before because of the crisis we still face or going through. I have had the opportunity to meet some of you even during the campaign, I have expressed our want for us to work even closer together to see how we can put our Ghana back on its feet. Of course, we all know that Ghana is very important in the geopolitics of West Africa and Africa in terms of upholding democracy and being the model of peace and security, it is something that we want to restore as quickly as possible
“So we look forward to working with you. Looking at the existing programmes we need to tweak them to meet the realities of today. I believe we have had discussions with the World Bank and the IMF already and we look to an early engagement so that we can continue to be on the wavelength. Of course in the campaign several promises were made, we need to look at what the reality is in terms of sitting together and seeing what the way forward is. Of course one of our main concerns is the issue of the debt repayments, we need to see how we can smooth them so that we don’t default again which will be more catastrophic than that currently defaulting,” he said.
He added “we know that in the last five years, the rainfall pattern was very erratic and so we are anticipating that there is going to be some problems with the availability of food and so how we are able to quicken support to ameliorate the situation is something that we will like to work on. with all the other agencies, UNICEF, UNHCR , we are happy to continue to engage to see how we can uplift the cooperation and the work that we do together.
“I don’t kid myself that it is going to be an easy task, it is going to be quite tough. I anticipated that we were going to win but I didn’t anticipate the margin by which we were going to win , that is an indication that Ghanaians have a very high expectation and so in managing that expectation, I am trying to work as quickly as possible to meet those expectations.”
